Chapter 28:

Dunning–Kruger Effect

The Empathy Curse: Hopefully My Understanding of Psychology Can Help Me in Another World


I woke up with an abrupt gasp for air, recalling a hazy outline of the nightmare I had just experienced, which had vanished once my thoughts returned. There were bandages wrapped around my torso, covering my right shoulder, where my arm once was.

This must be a hallucination. A by-product of the liminal state between sleep and wakefulness. I wanted to raise my hands to rub my eyes, but it only worked on the left side. Although I could swear my right hand had obeyed my command, it never reached my right eye. The stabbing twinge I felt from my missing arm reminded me of the condition of phantom limb syndrome, a phenomenon where those who lost a limb could feel the non-existent limb to be still attached.

The pain wasn’t too intense to tolerate, and it counteracted the soothing fog that still lurked over my thoughts. With my mind clearing up again, I figured Coyote was probably injected with the drug that Res mentioned, and my connection to her led me to experience its numbing effects too, so much so that I couldn’t think straight even when in danger. The bright side was that it definitely lessened the physical and mental pain from getting my arm torn off.

The reality set in for me. The nightmare was real; I lost an arm. That would also mean the lady I briefly saw was also real. She must have brought me back to her home to treat my wounds. Flickering torches affixed at regular intervals gave me the minimal lighting needed to survey my surroundings. This place seemed to be a cave, from the jagged rock wall.

And when I turned my head to the other side, my mouth gaped at the intimidating sight. A bona fide dragon the size of a private jet sat at the center of the spacious cavern. An enormous hole above its head let sunlight shine in, reflecting off its blood-red scales to project onto random spots on the cavern walls as if a disco ball were present.

Its amber slit eyes met mine. A set of deadly canines filled its mouth. The pair of wings on its back spanned across the cavern. Deadly spikes poked out the end of its tail.

“Hello?” I seized the initiative with an awkward greeting.

The dragon let out a sonorous, feminine voice that roared through the entire area. “You stand before Sabedra, the Dragon of Knowledge. For what reason do you disturb my dwelling?”

“Excuse me, Lady Sabedra, a woman must have carried me here. I didn’t come here of my own free will.” I felt like I had been calling a lot of women “Lady” recently.

“I will forgive your trespassing. For one condition, tell me who you are.”

“I’m Thomas.”

Sabedra turned her head upwards and spat a breath of fire into the sky. “How dare you disrespect me! Come closer to me when you speak!”

I realized that the distance between us was wider than I had thought. Sabedra’s sheer size messed with my sense of scale. So, she might not have heard a word that I was saying.

“I’m not trying to disrespect you. But I have to ask. Can you hear what I’m saying?”

“Stop disrespecting me! If you don’t approach me to show your deference, I shall mete out your punishment.” And here I thought deference was shown by keeping your distance. In case she would do something crazy, I complied with her demand. She lowered her head so I could get close to where I assumed her ear was located.

“Much better, so now that you are respecting me, tell me who you are again,” she said.

“Thomas.”

“Thomas… Yes… I had heard of your kind before. However, you should tell me what you know about your tribe, and I will correct you if you get anything wrong.”

“It’s not a tribe. It’s my name.”

“Then what creature are you?”

“I’m a human.”

“Impossible. Your mana doesn’t look human.”

“That sounds pretty racist.”

“Don’t use made-up words when you talk to me.”

“Never mind, I don’t know what you are talking about, but I’m definitely human.” I spoke with more confidence than I actually had, hoping Sabedra’s rebuttal could give me some information.

And she did. She spoke on and on in an indignant tone for possibly an hour. Her sludge of arguments could basically be boiled down to this: unlike a typical human in this world, who would store mana in the blood and would spend mana in the brain to use magic, she saw traces of mana in my brain but not my blood.

She, with her self-proclaimed top-tier mana-sensing skill, could see a thin strand of mana beaming out from my head in a straight line. But even with her (again self-proclaimed) genius, she wasn’t sure where it was pointing because she could only see the part close to my head.

“And remember, I’m one of the best at mana sensing.” She didn’t fail to remind me once again. Instead of being impressed, I was only thinking about how beginners are usually more confident about their own skills.

She kept on emphasizing how much she knew. Her voice was getting on my nerves. Seizing the opening when she paused to catch her breath, I slipped in a question.

“O’ great dragon Sabedra. Could you grant my wish and get me to the elven city of Melhnora?”

“Yes,” she said, and my heart erupted in celebration. But I celebrated too soon, because this was the entire sentence: “Yes, I know I’m great, but no, I won’t take you. What am I? A carriage?”

I took a deep breath to hold back my anger. “What can I do to change your mind?”

“Nothing. I know everything, so nothing can entice me.”

“You didn’t know that I’m human.”

“You are not human.”

“Then what am I?”

“Why do I have to tell you? I’m testing if YOU know who you are.”

I clenched my fists, straining to keep my voice soft and calm. “So, you’re saying that if I can prove that you don’t know something, you will take me to Melhnora?”

“I never said that.”

“How can you claim to know everything and not let me test you?”

“How dare a human being test me?” Didn’t she just say that I wasn’t human?

“Do you know what makes my mana so special? Oh, or do you not know?”

“Insolence! Don’t you test me!” Her mouth glowed, threatening to engulf me with fire.

She might end up roasting me alive, but I had to take that risk. I had an inkling that she wouldn’t harm me. It was a feeling that couldn’t be verified, but it was worth it. She could fly me to see Lyla and help me save the city.

I sprinted to the front of Sabedra’s mouth and waved the only arm I had left. “Burn me. And you will NEVER know what makes me special. Will you burn me? Will you?” I yelled with my remaining energy.

Sabedra kept the fire burning behind her teeth. With each passing moment, it got more likely that she would actually burn me alive. I found some solace only in the fact that I had partially experienced being burned to death from my link with the shifter. Coyote was the one that I was more worried about. Maybe she didn’t have to sacrifice herself. Maybe they wouldn’t have caught us even if we had both fled.

I could feel my eyes getting wet. “But please, if you kill me, go to the city of Nautia and save a girl named Coyote. Look for a girl who is dressed as a boy, and-”

“Fine! Fine! You win. Go ahead and test me. I don’t care anymore!” The light emanating from Sabedra’s throat vanished. She raised her head. Her body morphed in a way that reminded me of the shifter, except that she was shrinking in size.

After the transformation, in the dragon’s place stood a redhead woman, looking to be in her thirties. From her appearance, you’d never guess that she was a dragon at all. Her frilly orange dress stirred as she strode to me. She stopped before me and rested her hands on her hips.

“Feast your eyes on my human form!” She boasted, spinning to flaunt her figure. A stray rock caught the hemline of her dress and tore it.

We both froze, not knowing how to react.

Engin
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Uriel
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